Secret of Ramsay's Mr Fixit

Last updated at 09:47 27 July 2004

For more than 11 years, she has been the soothing presence in the life of fiery-tempered celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay. Despite coping with four children under six, a husband who works 17-hour days, and running her own business selling imported Indian furniture, Tana Ramsay looks as if she doesn't have a care in the world.

But behind her easy smile lies an embarrassing domestic secret. It concerns her father, Christopher Hutcheson, who is chief executive and director of Ramsay's restaurant empire.

Hutcheson, 56, was fined and forced to pay costs totalling nearly £70,000 for irregular business dealings. It was revealed how he had continued to run a manufacturing company - Kestrel Mould and Tooling Inc - despite having previously been banned from directing a business after running up a £900,000 tax bill.

A court in Sevenoaks, Kent, heard how he had used his son Adam, 34 - Tana's older brother - as the company's figurehead. Hutcheson admitted acting as a director while disqualified and was ordered to carry out 220 hours community service, while Adam was sentenced to 100 hours community service.

A spokesman for Ramsay tells me. "It's true this occurred. Christopher pleaded guilty and has paid his penance. He had been banned as a director for six years. He has now done all of his community service, which involved painting and some admin."

"He was very committed to it, and was actually very popular with the community service people - so much so that they threw him a party at the end of his stint. It should be made clear that his role at Gordon Ramsay Holdings is entirely legitimate and above board. What happened had nothing to do with Gordon Ramsay, or the restaurants. Christopher is very honest about the experience and has nothing to hide."

Hutcheson will remain as the chief executive of Ramsay Holdings, which includes his son-in-law's eponymous restaurant in Chelsea and Gordon Ramsay At Claridges.

Ramsay, 37, was not available for comment.

"He's in Singapore,' adds his spokesman. "He'll be asleep, and I can't imagine you will get the best reaction from him if you wake him up.

Holy war on gay tome

Writer Stephen Bates's well-regarded book on gays and the clergy - A Church At War: Anglicans And Homosexuality - has predictably not pleased everyone at Lambeth Palace.

Jeremy Harris, the Archbishop of Canterbury's secretary of public affairs, has taken such exception to alleged errors in the tome he has written no fewer than five letters of complaint. "I think he hoped he could get it pulped," says a publishing source. Naturally, I am sure the protests from Harris - a former middle-ranking BBC journalist - have nothing to do with Bates's description of the spin doctor as 'surprisingly charmless'.

Thanks, Mother!

Former royal financier Geoffrey Bignell - who revealed that Princess Diana took Prince Charles to the cleaners' when they divorced - surprises courtiers with his indiscretion. The ex-banker says he had to liquidate the Prince's entire investment portfolio to meet the £17.5 million pay-off the Princess's lawyers negotiated. But Bignell, 70, who was the Prince's financial adviser for 11 years, tells only half the story.

In fact, the Prince had to borrow the bulk of the money - around £10million - from the Queen. "We certainly didn't liquidate everything. Humiliatingly, the Prince had to ask his mother for help," says a friend. "She gave him a loan and he is still paying it off."

Joy at May's day

The curse which for many years seemed to stalk Lord Glenconner seems to have lifted.

One of the 77-year-old baron's twin daughters, May, 33, has found the man she wants to spend the rest of her life with.

She is engaged to IT expert Anton Creasy, 34, whom she has known since she was 18, but became romantically involved with only four months ago.

Anton, who is also a twin, tells me: "Suddenly, it happened. I don't quite know how, but we just sort of clicked. I think in the past, May had always been going out with someone else, and so had I. Finally, two weeks ago, I proposed to her at a restaurant beside a river." May - a production manager for a firm that makes TV commercials - and Anton will marry early next year.

The engagement is welcome news for the Lord - a lifelong friend of Princess Margaret - and his wife, Anne, 72. They lost a son, Henry, to Aids and another, Charles, to complications from heroin addiction.

Their third boy, Christopher, was left partially disabled by a motorbike accident.

PS

Sir Edward Heath's mind is still willing, even if his body is increasingly reluctant.

The former Prime Minister is still frail from an illness last year, after which he had to spend months in a nursing home, recovering from a clot on the lung.

His appearance in a wheelchair at Glyndebourne opera house, in East Sussex, at the weekend shocked fellow members of the audience. But the venue's owner, Sir George Christie, who had Sir Edward as a guest in his private box, says he is still in fine fettle mentally.

Sir George tells me: "He is 88 and is unable to walk very well at all now. He employs a man to push him in his wheelchair. But his mind is as alert as ever, albeit trapped in a worn-out body. In fact, he's got a much better memory than me, and I am only 69." So could Sir George give an example of Sir Ted's brilliant memory? "I could," replied the impresario. "Except, I can't remember."